Note 59 — BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE BEN JONSON AND SHAKESPEARE[44]

See Bacon’s Essay Of Simulation and Dissimulation, where he will have it that dissimulation is a necessary consequence of “secrecy,” its “skirts or traine, as it were.” Simulation he holds to be “more culpable ... except it be in great and rare matters” where there is “no Remedy.” Jonson would be able to maintain that his Ode told no lies direct—its attribution of “small Latin” being merely conditional, and its “Swan of Avon” a purely imaginary bird.